Fitzroy businesses for sale

I don’t think I’ve seen so many Fitzroy hospitality and retail businesses for sale, or vacant properties for lease, at the same time. These are all in addition to ones I’ve already written about, such as the former Oven pizza, the former convenience store next door, the bike shop and the former Django Django cafe.

On Brunswick St, Polly bar on Brunswick St is currently available. The northern end of Brunswick St is looking shaky – is it a good time to get out? At the opposite end Martha Ray’s cafe is currently listed for sale. Cape Live on the corner of Brunswick and Johnston streets is available. Opposite, the former Kleen, currently Urban Attitude is closing and the property is already listed.

Amidst all these current business closures and the availability of a lot of property, it could be easy to overlook another phenomenon. Fitzroy is a former industrial area undergoing gentrification but there is still a lot of real industry going on here using a lot of property.

The west end of Gertrude St is slowly being gentrified, such as by Catfish and Casa Ciuccio, but the west end of Johnston St has yet to be approached in the same way. The former Chan and Chan Trading Co building on Johnston St could be made into something fabulous, but is the location too risky?

And the quick fix to be mooted, to spark up business in the area, will probably be something really stupid, like turning Brunswick St into a “greenie” fantasy pedestrian paddock from Alexander Pde to Victoria Pde. No traffic, No parking, fewer outsider customers. And in the side streets more traffic, more congestion and a parking schmozzle. Followed by some equally air headed proposition that this will miraculously breath life into the street. It wont work. Not even once a year. New years eve. Hardly anything stays open that late on Brunswick anymore.. The “heyday” is long gone. Brunswick St, is passe, it is a cliche. It is fails to live up to its reputation. The community that once made it vital are gone, they are now driving Kia Wagons and living in Endeavour Hills. But my pessimism could be misplaced. My instinct wrong. The future may still bear strange fruit regardless of present hypothesis and contentions; and failing businesses aside.

I foresee an image of trendy Brunswick apartment blocks on a unsullied Brunswick St pedestrian mall already glinting in an architect’s chardonnay clouded eye……..The Paris end of Yarra … Avenue des Champs-Fitzroy. The realty vultures are circling. And regeneration will happen. Eventually. But it won’t be the 80’s revisited. It may be better…

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